Stalina (16 page)

*  *  *

Here at the Liberty Motel, Svetlana has grown full and round in the care of the crow under the pines. I named the crow Zarzamora, like my hair dye from Cuba. I like to call her ZZ for short. Svetlana goes out every day to see her, even though I have started to leave food for her in the linen room. She goes out when it snows to visit with ZZ even though there are no worms to be had from the frozen ground. When Svetlana walks in the snow, she shakes out her paws every couple of steps as she makes her way toward the pine trees. After some initial squawking and mewling, both animals settle down and sit together quietly. They linger. The cat’s nose and the bird’s beak twitch when they smell something on the wind. A car coming up the drive, or the linen room door opening, interrupting their business of shuffling through pine needles to find slow bugs. I started taking photographs of these two, but it felt like I was intruding. I have no desire to exploit their love. Leave the lovers alone. This is the policy I have adopted for my customers at the Liberty as well.

My mother’s ashes arrived from Maxim in a cigar box wrapped in the yellow apron my mother always wore. The pockets were decorated with traditional embroidery in red, yellow, and blue dancers skipping along the front of the apron. My father bought it for her when he was on a trip to Warsaw. She wore it every day, taking it off only when she went to bed. She often looked at aprons sold in the markets, but she never purchased a new one. Maxim included a note with his package.

*  *  *

I was surprised Maxim did not know the poem my mother wrote on her top sheet. I did not want to break the spell of his ardor. Maybe the people at the rooming house knew he was not her husband and hid my father’s words from him. I was inspired by his story of the ashes and was excited to be taking them to their requested liberation.

“I have to go to New York to pick up my mother’s ashes. There is some regulation,” I explained to Nadia. Maxim had in fact sent them to me directly, but I lied to Nadia. “I also want to take this opportunity to see the Statue of Liberty, and if I have time I will go to Brighton.”

“The Statue of Liberty—I have only seen it in pictures. It will be good for you to see Brighton Beach. My parents will be happy to have you visit.”

Revenge is filled with subversion like a blini stuffed with mushrooms.

Nadia continued, “They will walk you along the boardwalk and you will see the ocean.”

“I would like that.”

“Take a day away from the motel; you have been working without a break. I’ll have one of my boys cover for you.”

“Thank you, I could use a day off. It has been a hard time for me,” I said.

Perhaps Nadia had no idea how her parents betrayed mine.

“Stalina, what happened with you and Amalia?”

“She stole something of mine from Russia, sold it, and believed it was her right to do so. There was no place for me with her anymore. I am happy living at the motel.”

“Have you heard from Mr. Suri?”

“Yes, a postcard came the other day.”

I showed Nadia the postcard of a rodeo in a shopping mall in Oklahoma. At one end of the rodeo ring there was a ten-foot-high model of the Statue of Liberty. Mr. Suri’s handwriting was small, tight, and very delicate.

“He really cared for you, Stalina,” Nadia said after reading the card.

“I liked him very much; he was hardworking,” I said.

“I hope I didn’t stop anything between you two, but he was ruining my business.”

“I think he is happier now that he has gotten away from the motel. I don’t think he was a true believer in the short-stay concept.”

“Not like us! Short stays forever!”

“Short stays forever!” I joined in.

“Our customers return for their short stays, over and over,” she said.

“They come and hope to…” I stopped and waited for Nadia to join me.

“To come! And come again!” She laughed and threw her arms overhead and then embraced me. Two days later, I took a day off from work.

Once in New York City, I traveled by subway to Brighton Beach. Compared to our glorious Russian metro, the New York subway was like a creature suffering from a bad case of gastric distress coupled with rheumatoid arthritis. The tunnels were intestines, and the screeching brakes were the beast’s twisted, grinding jaw. When the doors opened, a belch of rancid smell permeated the car. Crazed writings in a strange alphabet covered the walls, and garbage was everywhere. A lonesome, unattended roaring giant was this train named N of the BMT Line. All of this was very unsavory, but as the train came out of the tunnel, I was delighted to see a beautiful view of the homes and narrow streets of Brooklyn. On top of one building was a billboard for a hairdresser written in Cyrillic. I felt a thrill and fear, as if I was returning home. It was a Monday in March and, coincidentally, the anniversary of Stalin’s death. Anyone alive in Russia at the time remembers where they were on that day in 1953. I was at home with Olga, playing cards and admiring our new hairstyles in the hand mirror my mother gave me for my birthday. As I came down from the elevated subway platform at Brighton Beach Avenue, the busy markets and businesses reminded me of home. The smell of juniper, cinnamon, and dill used to pickle beets, turnips, and garlic, along with the mouth-watering oils from the smoked fish, filled the air along the sidewalks. Who could resist going inside the markets? And Russian was being spoken on the street. Surrounded by everything familiar, I felt light in the head.

“I’m meeting Mina at three at the hairdresser,” a woman wearing a gray sable coat said in Russian to another woman in mink.

“The meringue cake at M&I is fresh today. Do you want me to pick you up some?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I would love some for tea. My mother-in-law is coming over, and the meringue cake is her favorite.”

“Sweetening her up again?” the woman in mink asked.

“Josip and I are going on the cruise we won at the raffle. I want her to mind the dogs while we’re gone.”

“Meringue cake will do it?”

“That and if we promise to take her on the next cruise.”

They turned the corner. I watched as their coats disappeared into a fruit stand, and I headed for the boardwalk. Even a block away the damp salt smell of the sea hung in the air. The wood of the boardwalk was wet from a morning rain. I sat on a bench against a newly whitewashed wall and stared at the ocean. An old woman wearing a paisley headscarf was throwing bread over a railing, feeding seagulls on the beach. The birds were going in circles overhead. A young mother pushing a baby carriage stopped to wipe mustard off her child’s hands and face. The sun was warm and lovely, and the seagulls threw shadows like airplanes flying in formation over the boardwalk. Two painters were whitewashing the walls along the sides of the boardwalk. They stopped to take a break when their partner returned with a tray of hot dogs and french fries. I could smell the food on the wind. The child with the mustard on his face started crying. His mother lit a cigarette and pushed the stroller closer to the beach and the seagulls. The birds screeched in harmony with the baby. There was much commotion as the birds rose, flapping fiercely and surrounding the old woman. She dumped the remaining crumbs in her bag over the railing, sat back, and fixed her scarf, which had come undone. The child started laughing, and the mother put out her cigarette and continued to walk down the boardwalk. The birds made a spiral into the air and dove for the bread. Brighton Beach was feeling very agreeable.

A dog came running up the boardwalk as the painters started to whitewash the next wall. The owner held out a large bone to the dog, who promptly grabbed it and put it securely between his front paws. He chewed ravenously right in front of me. His owner, who was wearing a blue and red jogging outfit and had a little bit of a limp, came over to retrieve his dog.

“Come on, Pepe, I haven’t finished my run,” he said.

The dog ignored him. This was one of the largest dogs I had ever seen. He had long legs with bulging joints. His back had black splotches on his otherwise white coat. He had haunches the size of a pony and did not sit his behind fully on the slats of the boardwalk. A large but delicate beast.

“I had a dog named Pepe. He was much smaller than yours,” I said.

The man was dark like Mr. Suri and had a gold ring in his nose.

“He’s a Great Dane, and he loves to run on the beach.”

“Mine liked to run along the river.”

“The Hudson?” he asked.

“No, the Neva, at home.”

“The Neva?” he asked.

“It’s in Russia, St. Petersburg.”

“So many people from Russia live here. Did your Pepe like to chase his shadow on the beach like this one?” he said, laughing.

“Dogs are so easily fooled,” I said.

“They may be small-brained, but they are forever loyal,” he added.

“Loyalty, yes, it’s their nature,” I said.

The whole time we spoke, the man jogged in place.

“Good day, ma’am, we must be on our way. Come along, Pepe,” he said as he tipped his cap with an
N
and a
Y
embroidered on it and ran down the boardwalk in the direction of a giant Ferris wheel and an Eiffel Tower–looking structure. Pepe loped behind with the bone dangling from his jaws. The sun was bright and harsh shining off the panting dog’s white coat.

On the beach, broken glass and plastic bags had settled down into the hardened winter sand mixed with snow and the occasional clamshell. A man with hair down to his shoulders was flying a kite with very little success. The seagulls were still crying and fighting over whatever bread was left. The bird sounds and squeals from children were picked up by the wind, stretched and muffled by the dull sound of the waves. Beach sounds were the same in Russia. The Baltic and the Atlantic must merge at some point, even here at Brighton Beach.

Russians were easy to spot, even from a distance. The head shawls, the way they leaned back and forth when they spoke to each other. Babushkas listening to babushkas.

The man’s kite was finally flying, and the wind was making his hair flutter around his head. He was running backwards to keep the kite in the air. He was headed straight for the boulders of a breakwater. I didn’t think he could see where he was going.

“Excuse me, sir!” I yelled. “Watch out! You are going to hit the…”

Too late. He was down and the kite was in the surf. He was getting up. He brushed himself off. He looked embarrassed even though he did not know that anyone saw him take the fall. He probably never heard my warning. No witnesses, no embarrassment, only a kite floating on the ocean’s waves, and no need for me to impose myself on everyone I encountered.
Move on, Stalina, you have more important business to attend to.

The boardwalk stretched up and down the beach, curved with the shape of the coastline. As I walked closer to the Ferris wheel, I could also see an amusement park rising up behind the boardwalk. One hot dog seller was open. All the other stands had metal gates pulled down. They advertised clams on the half shell, cotton candy, and popcorn. There was a roller coaster! I would have taken a ride in honor of my room design, but it appeared to be closed for the season. The clouds at the horizon were moving along with me. The Ferris wheel was in sight. There was a howling sound coming from somewhere in the amusement park. As I got closer to the source, I could hear that it was coming from a tower. A tower that was a ride that took people up and up to see everything around Brighton and out to sea. The wind was whipping inside of it, making a very mournful sound. There was an observation deck around the tower that slid up and down like a ring on a finger.

That deck moving up and down made me think how my mother would obsessively slide her wedding ring up and down her finger after my father was taken away. She had become very thin and would remove it to wash the dishes so as not lose it down the drain. Her fingers once were chubby and the ring was held tight by the soft bulge of flesh that used to form below her knuckle. The very day that Stalin died, Olga gave me a black ribbon for my hair.

“It’s for mourning because you are his namesake, Stalina,” Olga said as we stood in front of the mirror and she styled my hair with the ribbon.

After Olga left I took off the ribbon, and as my mother washed dishes, I strung her ring on the ribbon and tied it around her neck. That’s where she wore it from then on. There were people crying in the streets for days after Stalin died. My mother was very quiet, there were no tears, but when she washed the dishes, she let the water run over the rationed legal limit.

*  *  *

The tower continued its song of lament as I walked back to Brighton Beach Avenue. I passed a market that sold handmade brooms just like ones the street cleaners in Russia used to keep the avenues spotless. I had not seen one since I left.

“I’ll take one of these,” I said in Russian to the man standing in front of the store.

He wore a fedora covered in a shower cap, and he did not respond to me, so I picked up the broom. “What do you want a broom like that for?” he finally said.

“They do the job of two brooms at once,” I replied.

“That’s ridiculous. I just have them for the old ladies. They never stop sweeping; it’s not the broom that does the job of two.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Not that I don’t want to make a sale. I’ll sell you two for one, just because it’s starting to rain,” he said.

“I’d rather not carry them back on the bus to Connecticut.”

“Connecticut? Fancy, aren’t we?”

“It’s where I live. I am a tourist here.” I started to make my way down the block.

“Hey, Connecticut,” he called after me, “if you lived here, you’d be home by now. No broom for you? How will you keep your
foyer
clean?”

He laughed. I could still hear him laughing when I turned into another store.

M&I Grocers was one of the bigger markets located under the trestle of the subway. Walking through the doors I saw many of the things we missed back home in Russia. Guilty pleasures of smoked fish, farmer cheese, ice creams. Sausages. Things that were very expensive and difficult, even with money, to come by. Braided challah breads, squid salad, pickled tomatoes, and more.

I walked up the curved white metal stairs to a balcony and a beautiful café. At the counter the cakes for the day were all lined up. There was the meringue cake that the women on the street had spoken about, and a plum cake with walnuts and buttercream icing. Behind the counter, a tall blond-haired fellow in a white uniform asked me in Russian what I wanted.

“Pavashta, cake and coffee with cream,” I said and pointed to the plum cake.

“Caf or decaf?” he asked me in English.

“Excuse me?”

“Regular or decaffeinated coffee,” he clarified.

“Without caffeine?” I asked.

“Oh, Americans like it that way.”

“Maybe I should have a tea instead,” I added.

“Your coffee is already poured,” he said.

He scowled as I took my cake and coffee and sat at a table. There were mirrors on all the walls and pictures of the owners smiling with Russian dancers and singers. I saw myself in one of the mirrored walls next to a photograph of Vladimir Rashnisky, a crooner who died of alcoholism in 1982. My hair was in great disarray from the wind on the boardwalk. There was Misha Baryshnikov, still so handsome. I saw him perform at the Kirov. His passionate death scene made us all weep. It was a sad day for the ballet when he defected. He must have a very good life here, but there must be things he misses from home, otherwise why would he visit this place.